Blues deluxe repairs & mods - advice needed

[NoelW]

I posted this thread on other forums, but didn't get any responses from anyone who had used these mods.
I am keen to hear about anyone else's experience and also anyone's comments or advice.

I have a Blues Deluxe on my bench that needs some repairs and the owner has asked me, to also do some mods to improve the distortion in "Drive" Mode.

I am considering doing the Andy Marshman Mods, as detailed on the Duncan Amps website (which uses the unused V2B Triode) -
www.duncanamps.com/technical/bluesdeluxe.html

Has anyone here done these Mods, or know how successful they are, or have advice as to whether these mods look like they are a good approach to a Blues Deluxe?

Due to the amount of work involved (especially disassembling the PCB to make changes), I would welcome any info, advice, comments, or opinions, before committing to the Mods part of the job.
Attached are drawings of the Standard Blues Deluxe Schematic and the Blues Deluxe Preamp Schematic with the Mods.
The Schematics are shown in "Drive" Mode (the same way that Fender shows the Blues Deluxe schematic).

I have added a Shunt; to ground the Output of V2B, to prevent any noise or stray signal from the "Drive" Stage, getting to the grid of V1B, when in "Clean"/Bypass Mode.
Do you think this is necessary?

Thanks for any advice, suggestions, or comments.

Noel.

[Randall]

I didn't think anyone really ever used the drive channel on these amps, they are dreadfully fizzy in my experience. I'm not sure adding gain would fix that.

The gentleman's assertion that "In Fenders design, the Drive channel is just a louder, still clean version of the Clean channel", I don't find true at all. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

[Enzo]

Oh I agree, the gain channel sounds awful. I love teh clean channel.

[g1]

Exactly what I was going to say when I first read this, but I know he's looking for first hand experience with these particular mods.
My opinion of this whole series of amps is that they sound pretty good if you never use the drive channel.
Many who use them and want 'drive' use pedals and keep it on clean channel.

But perhaps that is what these mods are about, getting a usable distortion tone without pedals.

[SoulFetish]

Oh I agree, the gain channel sounds awful. I love teh clean channel.

I always felt the same way about the Crate V30. Had an awesome clean sound, with headroom for days. But the distortion channel was unusable.

I've worked on soooo many of Blues/Hotrod amps, I can't even remember what the hell the differences are between the different versions and models. Well, I know all the ways they differ, but I couldn't match the model with the amp. They all coalesce into one big amp, face down on my bench with the back panel removed.